Born in 1964 in California. Worked for SST Records and as a roadie for various bands including Black Flag, Minutemen, and Meat Puppets in the 1970s and ’80s, and lived in Tucson, Arizona; Galveston, Texas; and Norwalk, Hollywood, Torrance, and San Pedro, California. Currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and dabbles with computer code, bugs, and whatnot.
I DIDN’T GET INVOLVED IN THE SCENE, because of where I was living, until I moved to Tucson in October of ’82. I was living in Norwalk, California, before, which explains why there was no scene. In Tucson, my mom worked at a pool hall called Troy’s Billiards. That cat was from Torrance, California, and he would have bands play on the weekends. One of the bands was a ’60s type. I was talking to those cats, and they told me I would probably be better off hanging out at a place called the Backstage, which was a dive bar on Fourth Avenue. I started going there and hanging out.
Tucson had an awesome scene. The punk rock scene was very, very open. Long-haired people and skinheads would show up, and everyone would get along. It was not that way in Cali. Everybody went to shows in Tucson no matter what kind of music the band did. It was kind of like the Nashville scene. So even if you might be into rockabilly or punk rock or some kind of noise fusion, you went to shows. Of course, the bigger shows drew all the crazy people from the college.
The first violent show I saw was Black Flag. When I would go to shows at the Backstage, people would slam in the pit and if you fell, people picked you up. It was fun. Black Flag was different. It was wow. All these jocks showed up, and they thought it was cool to punch people in the face. It was hardcore. I don’t know if that’s how Black Flag always was or if Henry brought that kind of mentality. You know, the way he sang songs compared to how Dezo [Dez Cadena] or Keith Morris did it. I’m not sure if that’s true. That’s just what people have told me over the years.
I believe Dezo was playing a show in Tucson in December of 1982, and that was the last [Chuck Biscuits] show. While Dezo was in town with this show, I ended up meeting him. Dezo told me he’d be back in May and, if I came to the show, he’d put me on the guest list. In May 1983, I went to that show with my friend Anita. Davo, the roadie, was the first one I met. Mugger was the second person I met. They wanted me to hang out. So we ended up getting in free. I thought it was cool as shit. We got there really, really early, like five in the afternoon. We ended up talking and chilling. I learned all there was to learn about merchandise and what the merch person does and what the sound dude does. I just kind of followed him around and was learning shit. I was taking it all in. I thought, “I want to do this. It’s cool.” As the night went on, me and Davo hung out. He said, “You should go to Phoenix with us. But how are you going to get home?” I was like, “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry. I got this. I got this.” So we ended up getting in the van with Black Flag. There were a bunch of people in that van. There were altogether ten people: Davo, Mugger, Spot (he produced Damaged and stuff), Joe Carducci, Chuck Dukowski, Greg Ginn, Henry Rollins, Bill Stevenson. There were just the random people who worked for SST, the roadies, and Black Flag. It was weird.
So, we went to Phoenix. When we were loading in, I helped roadie. Carducci said, “You’re our guest. You don’t have to.” I told him, “I don’t ever want anybody to call me a groupie.” I helped Davo load gear and the merch and set up the table. I also helped set up all the mics. It was pretty cool. It was at this place called Mad Gardens. That show was bizarre, because it was a wrestling ring with a chain-link fence. It was awesome. It was a trippy show to say the least. I remember climbing the chain-link fence and just hanging up there.
After the show, we had to hitchhike home to Tucson. Davo took us to the last exit out of Phoenix. He was really nervous and scared for us. We panhandled at this store and got enough money to buy a twelve-pack. We were at this on-ramp and started drinking. Who knows how we ever survived it. Carloads of strange, random, and weird dudes tried to pick us up. Other people would slow down, look at us, and drive on really fast. I looked fairly normal, but my friend had a Misfits-style haircut and she was wearing a dog collar with these big nail spikes on it. I was like, “Maybe you should take your collar off.”
There was something so weird out of this whole thing. This is totally true. I swear to God on my life. We were almost out of beer and I was going to go back to the store. I stood up and turned around and looked out to the desert. You know how the desert shimmers? I saw this dude or something walking towards us out of the fucking desert. As he got closer, I could tell he had long hair. He didn’t have a shirt on. He had a shirt tied around his waist. I turned to my friend and said, “Dude! I think we’re fucking dead, because there’s Jesus.” She turned around and she was like, “Oh, fuck. I think we are. Hit me, punch me, pinch me.” So I pinched her and she said, “No, we’re not dead.”
So, this dude comes walking towards us and he’s like, “Hey, sisters. What are you doing?” We’re like, “We’re hitchhiking. What the fuck does it look like?” We’re punkers, right? And he goes, “Far out. Do you like peyote?” We said, “Yeah.” He goes, “Hold out your hand.” He gave us peyote buttons. I took them right then. Like the bitch I am, I ate his peyote and said, “Dude! You can’t stand next to us. Nobody will ever pick us up with a guy here.” He said, “No problem, my sisters.” He went down to the end of the off-ramp.
Fucking shit! I am not lying to you. In five minutes, a car stopped and picked him up. He was nice enough to get us a ride. He sat in the back of the seat between me and Anita. All these people in the car were deadheads coming back from that Ventura show that goes on every year. They were heading to the next show in Albuquerque. I thought, “These deadheads got it going on.” It didn’t freak me out until we got halfway to Tucson and I start coming on to the peyote. They were smoking weed. I had quit smoking weed, but I took a hit. I don’t know why. And boy! Mistake! Now I was tripping balls on peyote and I was high from this weed. So the first off-ramp we got to in Tucson, I said, “This is it! Right here. Cool!” Because I was picturing them taking us into the desert and hacking us up like The Hills Have Eyes. I was just freaking out. We were about ten miles out from our house, so we spent the night in a graveyard. We were tripping balls. Again, we panhandled enough to get some beer. We just sat in the graveyard and tripped balls all night until daylight. Then we called a friend of ours to pick us up.
I lost my job from going on this little Phoenix excursion, so at this point I was doing side work, day jobs. In June of 1983, Black Flag did a show at the Santa Monica Civic. I flew into L.A. to see that show. I was put on the guest list. It was fifty bucks to fly from Tucson to Los Angeles. I had just enough money to spend at the show. Back then, people didn’t have cell phones. They were lucky if they had home phones. The next day after the show, my sister and her old man just dropped me off at LAX and left me at the curb. I got up to the ticket counter and the lady said, “That will be $115.” I didn’t have that, so I started crying. This dude came out. He had been at that Black Flag show and he was like, “Let’s see what we can do for you.” He asked, “Did you like the show?” I said, “It was fucking awesome.” He goes, “It was, wasn’t it?” He flew me back to Tucson for just the tax of the ticket. It was just like the Grateful Dead. I was thinking that in my head. People look out for each other.
I ended up leaving Tucson, because I had no reason to stay there. I went back to L.A. I stayed with my sister, who is crazy. She threw me out. I was wandering the streets of Hollywood. I was living in a place called Hotel Hell, and I was lonely. One night I was at the Cathay de Grande, and there was Dez Cadena and Jim Gardner. They took me in. That was in 1984. I was working at Wherehouse Records. My boss was very awesome. He gave me the position of being the buyer for independent imports like the Dead Kennedys. Carducci and Mugger came in a couple of times. They were keeping in touch with me. I helped do mailings and stuff for SST. Then the Summer Olympics came and I left town, as did everyone else. When I came back that time around, I was staying with another family member who got evicted when I was staying there. Again, I was homeless on the streets of Hollywood.
I had been homeless for a few weeks. I was looking at the L.A. Weekly and I saw this show at Club Lingerie. I got down there and asked for Davo, but Mugger came to the door. It was a Minutemen show. Mugger seemed sexist, but he really wasn’t. When I told him what was going on, he got the keys to the van and took me in the van. So we went back that night and spent the night in Global Network Booking in Black Flag’s practice room.
The next day, D. Boon and Jeanine [Garfias] showed up and Mugger said, “Jeanine, can she come live with you? She’s a cool chick.” D. Boon said, “No doubt, come live with us.” So D. Boon took me in off the street. I did a lot of roadie work when I lived with D. Boon in ’85. I also started hanging out with bands in San Pedro, and I would roadie with them or do mini-tours with them. Pedro is a weird little town. It’s kind of off by itself. It’s like living in a small town. So in the scene, no matter what music or genre, everybody supported each other. That was a cool little scene down there.
I was supposed to have been in the van that rolled over [the accident in which D. Boon died], but I couldn’t get off work. I was back at Wherehouse Records, and I was a buyer. When that wreck happened, Jeanine broke her back. She told Mugger, “Call Kara. Tell her what happened.” A few days later, Mugger called me and said, “I’ve been talking to Jeanine and she says the only person she wants in mail order is you. So I’m going to offer you this job.” We buried D. Boon on that Saturday, and I started working at SST on January 6, 1986. That was how I got the job at SST. I remember that funeral. Me and Mugger and Linda, the secretary at SST, sat together. It was a horrible funeral.
At the time, SST Records was located in Hawthorne on Hawthorne Boulevard. Later on they moved over to Long Beach, and that’s when Greg Ginn came back to work. I started out in mail order and Mugger was really quickly impressed with me, so he handed me the reins to the warehouse and shipping and receiving and, right behind that, distribution and sales. I grew it. Me and Mugger working together were a team and a half. He’s one of my mentors. I worked there January of ’86 until I was fired by Greg Ginn in May or June of 1990.
Out of all the distributors I worked with, I can only recall one woman out of twenty-two distributors. Even the buyers were mostly all men. I don’t recall any women buyers at records stores, unless it was a mom and pop shop. Very strange. That’s when I realized how lucky I was that they had given me that job. It didn’t dawn on me that women didn’t do that. That they didn’t do a lot of what I was doing.
I went on tour with the Meat Puppets, Minutemen, and Black Flag. I would go to the shows early. These were mostly one-offs down to San Diego, and I did some one-offs out to Tucson. I actually had a full-time job, so I couldn’t go on a long tour, so I did one-offs. When I roadied, I helped carry gear. Black Flag had a lot of gear. I just remember their stuff was really heavy. The speakers and cases. They had their own sound system. By 1986, they were touring with a giant truck along with their regular van.
I toured more with the Meat Puppets. With them, I did a lot of the drums. I carried the drums and helped set up the drums. I did some stuff with the Minutemen. It was hard, but when I was in Texas I was a brick laborer, so I’ve always been like, “I’ll take it.” This is where being a chick comes into my mind. I will not complain in front of men. I want to do the same job as men. Even if it’s killing me, I’m not going to let them know.
One time I had been loading gear in all day for the Meat Puppets, when I went and changed clothes and was coming in the back door. Some back door dude made a comment and asked me if I was on the list. I didn’t have a laminate on. I had one on earlier and took it off. I was like, “Dude. I’ve been loading gear all day. Are you fucking kidding me?” He said something like, “Groupies can go through the front.” I chested up on him. “Who the fuck are you calling a groupie?” He picked me up in a bear hug, which was his first mistake. I latched on to the bottom part of his ear. I bit his ear off. He probably never picked up a chick in that direction again. He had me with my arms down by my side. In my mind, all I saw was a man grabbing me and I freaked out, so I bit him. Yeah [laughs]. He went home. He got fired, because I worked for SST. I was mean. I was really a little skinny thing, but I could fight like a dude and would.
I never thought of myself as a woman. I’m kind of a tomboy. They call me the female Bukowski, because of the way I talk or whatever. I love Charles, so it’s a compliment. My foster mother never really wanted me around, so I hung out with my foster dad in the saw mill. I just always wanted to do guy stuff. I never ever let anything be a roadblock. Even though I know they’re there. I consider myself a feminist in the sense that, if I want something, I’ll just go do it. I’m not going to wait for the government to pass a fucking law that tells people they have to hire me. As a matter of fact, I’d rather be hired because of my talent, my skills, and my know-how than some law.
My foster dad has a lot to do with it. He told me I could do anything I wanted to do and be. I grew up in the ’60s and watched the bra burnings and that kind of stuff. I was very much into that. I would ask questions like, “Why don’t women already have rights?” I just didn’t get it. I would say, “I want to be a biker when I grow up.” My dad would be like, “Well, I don’t know if there’s a lot of money being made in riding a motorcycle around, but whatever.” I’d say, “When I grow up, I want to be a logger.” When the Sex Pistols toured, I was watching it. I was fascinated. I turned around and told my foster dad, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a punk rocker.” My daddy said, “Well, I reckon it’s probably got a bit more money than being a biker. Whatever you want.” When I got hired at SST, I actually called my foster parents to tell them, “I’m making a living as a punk rocker.” My dad said, “I knew you’d do it. I knew it.”
There was one person at SST that made me feel discriminated against, but that was more because I was a high school dropout. Mugger put me in charge of something. If someone wanted to get master tapes, they had to sign them out with me. This really upset this dude. I can remember him and Mugger going into the warehouse and I could hear everything because we were still in a small space, and he was flipping out. “Fucking bitch! Little bitch! This little high school dropout bitch.” Mugger said, “I was a fucking high school dropout.” At the time, though, he was going to college. Mugger said, “She’s doing her job. She’s really smart. Leave her alone.” I could hear him yelling, but I also heard Mugger sticking up for me.
When Greg fired me, I was really the last one there except this one dude who hated me. When he fired me, I walked out and there were police outside. Yeah, I guess they were afraid. He had people watching me. He had a couple guys watch me box up my desk and get my stuff together. I was tripping. “Do you think I’m going to fucking steal from you?” I think that was what we had a fight about, about him stealing from people. It wasn’t like just being fired from a company. It was my family, my surrogate family. In my mind, it was like I was put out by family. I didn’t listen to music or really do anything in music until I started booking with Springwater in Nashville.
When I came back to Nashville in 1995, I was working at a place called Jamaica’s and I asked if anyone knew where Cantrell’s was. When I lived with D. Boon, he told me about a place called Cantrell’s in Nashville that had a dirt floor. It was his favorite place to play. I wanted to go see this place and pay a little respect. They all started laughing and were like, “You’re standing in the lobby of what used to be the entrance of Cantrell’s.” Talk about the world coming full circle. The guy who used to own Cantrell’s now owns this other dive bar called Springwater. No one would play there. I started working at Springwater off and on in ’96 and ’97. In March 1999, I started working there full-time.
Springwater was really a rough place, but I went in there. One of my favorite sayings was, “Fuck you, motherfuckers. I fucking worked with Black Flag. I roadied with Black Flag. This ain’t shit.” At first I didn’t tell people I had worked at SST. I was embarrassed by it. I thought everybody knew. It was really devastating to me, that job and that company and what happened. But that is the one thing I have to say about working for SST. I didn’t realize what SST really was until I got to Tennessee and started booking for Springwater. I realized exactly what that label meant to people. I started booking bigger and bigger names. Someone came through and knew who I was. They recognized my name and said, “You used to work at SST.” That kind of got out and it became easier to book. Then I was like, “Fuck it! I might as well use it. Because, goddamn, it ain’t like Greg Ginn didn’t use me there at the end.”
One of my things has always been to just be yourself and be nice to people. When you do good for people, it will come back. The way my work ethic is, the way I was when I got in the van with Black Flag, and how I acted and behaved and carried myself, that stuck with them. It’s how I was raised. People see that. I’ve done right. I did the right things. It has all come full circle somehow, in some weird randomness.